Who loves to IRON????

I DO! 

What?! I hate ironing. But I might have been won over by a little Amy Butler August Fields. Yep. I think ironing on a little bit of this:

or this:

could win anyone over. Am I right?!

I FINALLY made some new covers for my ironing boards. I've had this on my list to do for ages now and I'm so glad I finally did. I thought about Elizabeth's tutorial here using the tv tray, (I think she said to use home dec weight fabric or canvas, and I used some home dec fabric) and this tutorial here over at I have to say... (I was going to do this exact thing but my ironing board hangs from the door so that would have made it a little harder, and I don't think I have enough cording. Plus my fabric wasn't 4" wider than my board = I improvised), and then this awesome tutorial by Jenelle of Echinops & Aster at Quilter in the Gap. I kind of did use the last tutorial, following the basic idea, but then mostly did my own thing as I went along.

I have this mini ironing board that my mom had forever. I remember using it (and burning myself with the iron while using it) when we lived in Texas 18+ years ago. yikes. Anyway, it still had the same cover on it and I would put a towel over it whenever I ironed on it, because well, that's old. So I took the old cover off and basically did what Jenelle did. I used two layers of batting, but then did my home dec weight of Amy Butler. My cover extends past the batting so it looks a little different on the bottom. Plus I have NO idea how she made those perfectly mitered corners, and it was too late at night when I made it so I didn't care to go look. lol. Anyway, I'm happy with how it turned out!

Then onto my bigger ironing board. I ended up cutting out some new batting for this, but only used one layer. I cut it about the same size as my home dec weight Amy Butler fabric, which I actually didn't cut at all. It's a half yard that I didn't trim or clean up or anything. Is that awful? I think it looks fine so I don't care. ;) I did cut some of the long strings off from washing. :)

I laid the cover down on the floor, wrong side up, then the batting, then put my ironing board on it. I pulled everything up in between the bars and the board, folded and pinned. I only folded it over once, as I'm not really going to be looking at the inside and it means less bulk.

At the angled part I folded it a little so it would hold it's shape around the board. 

Then at the tip I brought the two sides together and pinned them where they overlapped. Then I folded the top down and pinned that in place. I actually pinned the whole cover around the board and then slid it off and sewed it all. I wasn't sure how it would work sewing the tip, but it actually went very nicely. I sewed up one side, sewed to the point, and went down the other side. Afterwards I went back and sewed down the sides of the flap. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the process... it was late and I didn't feel like taking pictures. You can see my seams though and hopefully that gives you an idea of what I did - in case you have an ironing board like this too.

I sewed an elastic in the middle of the board, pulling the two sides in.

For the bottom I cut off the corners so I would have a big flap to fold under to help hold it in place.

I sewed some elastic along the end of the flap, right over the selvage. I didn't stretch the elastic at all because I wanted it to remain flat. I did stop about an inch or so away from the edges of the elastic. Then I marked where the elastic would meet the sides and sewed a button hole on each side. I stuck a big quilting/basting safety pin on each end of the elastic and pushed those through the button holes! ghetto or what?!

I forgot how to make the button hole on my sewing machine, so one side of this button hole is like 3 inches long. lol. love it.

Anyway, it works and I love it! :)

Here was my old sewing board cover. yuck. I always kept a towel over it, which drove me crazy because whenever I would iron larger pieces of fabric, as I'd pull the fabric to iron the new section, the towel or the cover would come off and I was always adjusting it. This is going to be a breeze now! I am so happy! :) Plus it just looks good.

I think I just might have to go iron all this beautiful fabric now! ;) (If you don't know what this is, go check out this post by Katie over at There and Back!) :)

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!!

OH! I almsot forgot! I wanted to show you my beautiful new sewing table!

I finally ordered some of these...

I love the colors and reflection in this picture. If it had a more interesting subject I could almost hang it on my wall. lol.

for this:

Check it out, it's a totally solid and sturdy table that folds up! You flip the leg around so it's laying on the table:

(see my leg holding it up for the picture? it's heavy!)

and then you fold it up some more, push the key down to lock it in place,

and viola! It's all gone! :) Nice and tidy and child proof! My dad had these made years and years ago! When we moved out of his house about 5 years ago we took two of these with us (he said we could). ;) The other one has lots of great drawers in it along with more shelves. A few years ago one of the hinges broke, so I used it on the side of the couch, but didn't end up using it very often once I took my sewing machine up to our bedroom to sew. Now it's all mine again and I'm so excited! :) Who says you should ever get rid of things?! lol. Ok, I promise I'm not a hoarder, but hey, here are a few things that have definitely lasted through the years and I'm more than happy to still have them! :) good quality rocks!


and while I'm talking about things I ordered, these finally came in the mail!

I still need to blog about this story... but that's for another day! it's one that just keeps getting better and better.

not sure how this guy snuck into my pictures. Maybe he's the one that's been calling on the telephone. Aren't those eyes scary?! can someone explain to me why they make children's toys look like that?